My work references the Pop language of American action comics as source material for abstract paintings and collages. Comic book iconography offers a visual language that is recognizable and accessible by audiences from many diverse audiences. This subculture medium represents a modern mythology that brings larger-than-life subject matter into the predictability of our everyday life. These works explore the organization of time and space as prescribed by comics’ sequential format through the use of multi-panel surfaces and the layering of visual information.
When developing the Closure Grids, I wanted to create a body of work that spoke specifically about comic book closure. “Closure” is the duration of action and time that occurs in between panels. In the comics business, the white lines that separate panels are often referred to as “the gutters”. It is within this small gap that the reader must interact with the narrative by filling in the details. Time and space are very elastic between panels. By using the medium to talk about itself, I was able to isolate the gutters themselves. By removing all but the inner edge of each panel, these pieces limit the burdens of signifiers, while still revealing brief glimpses of what might have been contained within each panel. The dense layering of these subject-less grids emphasizes the fragmented and serial nature of comic books, without talking about specific titles or characters. Though based in comics of the past, the Closure Grids refer to our contemporary technological society. Most computer technology, from your laptop to cable television, is based in a layered, compartmentalized format. The voids in the Closure works, represent the rectangular platform for advertising images. From billboards to comic books, from magazines to candy wrappers, and from coffee cups to iphones the proliferation of reproduced images is a hallmark of our contemporary society
